


Will Never Be the Same

by wonderlandiscrumbling



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slight horror, Violence, sequel fic, sequel to Pills to Cope With Bad Decisions, will add more tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 09:28:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16060271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderlandiscrumbling/pseuds/wonderlandiscrumbling
Summary: The earthquakes that lead to Gotham turning into No Man's Land changed a lot of things. A circus was erected on the edge of the city, a new mysterious killer is attacking all sides for unknown reasons, and it feels as if nothing can ever return to the modified normality it once was before. (Sequel to Pills to Cope with Bad Decisions)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Finally a sequel begins and this will probably be a bit on the dark side and I will add more tags and warnings as it goes on and possibly more Batman villains as well.

There was a circus right on the outskirts of the city, it curved along the edges teetering above the waters below. Not long after the earthquakes had hit Gotham the circus had appeared; at the forefront was a large archway, a sign announcing it as the ‘Circus of Strange’. The circus was small, it was nothing too massive or grand scale, but the attention it drew in rivaled that of your average grand scale event. 

Oswald stood outside the entrance of the circus, he pulled his coat tighter around himself shivering as the cold winds hit him. He watched as people walked past him, some elated, and others looking almost guilty as they sulked past him and into the mess of tents and lights. He took a step closer and suddenly felt uneasy, he felt as if he were being watched. A part of him said that it was irrational and his paranoia telling him such things, but he knew who ran this circus and the strange company they kept these days. He wouldn’t be surprised if somebody or some God-awful monstrosity was watching him from behind one of the booths or tents. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket pulling him from his considerations and his reverie, he pulled it out of his pocket flipping it open and looking at the text that Ed had sent to him.

‘Where are you?’

‘On my way home.’

It wasn’t a complete lie. He turned and made his way back to the waiting car. As he walked away the feeling of being watch seemed to only intensify, he looked back over his shoulder and took notice of a figure peeking out behind a tent; a large person in a pastel green baby doll dress, a porcelain mask covering their face. Oswald quickened his pace, he reached out taking hold of the car door handle, throwing the door open and climbing into the passenger seat. He slammed the door behind him locking it, he looked out the window and watched as the figure walked away back into the depths of the circus. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, fear clutching him. He closed his eye and took a shuddering breath.

“You okay boss?” Victor asked looking over the smaller obviously terrified man.

Oswald turned his head to look at him. “Fine, just….Just take me home.” He responded attempting to steady his voice.

Victor looked as if he wanted to inquire further, but instead started up the car and pulled away from the camp of nightmares.

He felt stupid for fearing a person in a mask, but that wasn’t it. There was something that wasn’t quite right, something that filled him with dread and some macabre thought that said, ‘that could be you’. 

As they re-entered the city he surveyed the wreckage of his city; it had been a year since the earthquakes hit, the city was still mostly in ruins. Initially the government had been sending in aid, taking the injured out of the city and into Central city as well as Metropolis to receive the help they needed that at the time could not be provided for them in Gotham. For nearly three months the power had been out, it still was wonky with the occasional mass blackouts. Food rations were drastically low; the help flown in from other cities and even states had slowed to a stop thanks to the people who shot down the helicopters robbing them and murdering the pilots. Admittedly Oswald’s men might have been some of the people involved in said looting, it wasn’t something he was immensely proud of, but it wasn’t as if he kept the rations for himself and his own family.

He smiled when they passed by what used to be city hall; the building now formed into a rather ridiculously grand scale casino and night club, the outside and inside of the building as well were pristine and new compared to the ashen surroundings. Oswald learned one thing in his life that everything in life offered some business opportunity, the earthquakes hadn’t been exempt to that rule.

“So why do you keep going out to the circus?” Victor eventually asked.

Oswald jumped not expecting his bodyguard to say anything on the way home.

“I’ve been pondering some things.” 

Morbid curiosity and his own men were being taken out by some mysterious Hangman.

“Thought you hated the twins.”

Oswald rolled his eye. “I do, well I hate Jerome….The other one, Jeremiah is at least the slightest bit tolerable. Apparently before the quakes and before his brother scared him out of whatever hole he’d been hiding in for the past few years he’d been an architect, was even contracted under Thomas Wayne for a time.”

He didn’t know as much as he wished he knew about Jeremiah Valeska. He knew that the quakes had done massive damage to Arkham asylum resulting in most of the inmates escaping and the more meta and less human ones had been impossible to recapture, Jerome had been one that got away rather easily. The rumor was that his brother had a panic shelter that doubled as his home, he lived there due to a paranoid fear that his twin would find him and kill him. Apparently, his fear came true to a point, Jerome had found him after the quakes hit, and had apparently dosed him with some type of toxin he’d paid Jonathan Crane to make for him. 

Oswald had only caught a glimpse of Jeremiah once, he’d found his appearance to be a slight chilling. His hair was a dark shade of purple, his eyes haunted and pale blue, lips red, and skin porcelain white. He seemed haunted, empty and devoid of humanity; he looked like a doll. He immediately thought of the person in the baby doll dress who had been watching him before, he wondered if they worked for Valeska or somebody else.

“And now he’s bat shit crazy running some fetish torture circus.” 

He smirked at that. “True, but he could be valuable….Do you think they know who the Hangman is?” He inquired glancing in Victor’s direction.

“Doubtful. I know Nygma is usually the one you ask this kind of stuff, but I gotta say….If they were going to do anything to you it’d be massive and probably seriously fucked up.”

“Good point.” Oswald muttered.

The rest of the ride was in relative silence minus the David Bowie CD that Victor had playing, an odd soundtrack when looking out at the chaos of the city. There at least was the comfort that Gotham was pulling itself together, but it was still horribly fractured. Oswald knew something changed the day the earthquakes hit, he knew that whatever it unleashed could never be shoved back into the bottle.


	2. Chapter 2

Ed was seated at the desk in the study, he stared down at his cell phone checking it for new texts. Twenty minutes ago Oswald had told him he was on his way home, an hour before that he’d claimed he was at the Glacier taking care of some last minute business, but Ed knew that was a lie. He snapped his phone closed, a second later he opened it, he repeated this new nervous habit repeatedly; the clicking echoed in the office eventually accompanied by the nearly irritated cawing from the crow perched on the grandfather clock in the corner.

“Just call him.” 

He glanced up at Lee who sat upon the corner of the desk, her body turned towards him, but her eyes were focused on the papers and photographs that she held in her hands.

“That would seem a bit annoying, wouldn’t it?” 

She looked up meeting his gaze, “He calls you al the time when we’re out on jobs, it’s honestly kind of a pain in the ass.” She returned her gaze to the pages.

Ed sighed, he went into his contacts, pulled up Oswald’s number and heavily considered hitting the green call button. He closed his eyes, shook his head, and then shoved his phone back into his pants pocket. He straightened up and grabbed the pages from Lee’s hand, she glared at him, but said nothing. 

“Notice anything new?”

“There’s nothing to notice Ed, we aren’t going to find out who Hangman really is by just looking at pictures of their kills.”

He stared down at the picture. The picture was taken inside of the Glacier; from the chandeliers four of Penguin’s henchmen were hanged and their stomachs sliced open, entrails dangling down past their feet and blood dripping onto the black and white tiled floor. Ed swallowed hard as he looked at the picture. He knew that Oswald hadn’t been at the Glacier when this killing happened, but what if he had been? He felt this choke hold of fear thinking about it, he knew that the Hangman wanted him, was out to kill him for God knows what reasons.

“What if he’d been there?”

“But he wasn’t.” 

Ed sat the photo down on the desk, he placed other papers on top of it so he wouldn’t have to look at it any longer. He turned his attention back to Lee.

“I know he wasn’t, but what if he had been? Would Hangman have killed him, kidnapped him?” 

He felt anxious, he knew it was rather idiotic to feel anxious, Oswald was presumably fine off somewhere supposedly on his way back home. 

“Why did he lie to me anyway, I haven’t lied to him about anything ever since we got married, and now he’s telling me he’s at the casino when he very obviously wasn’t.”

Lee placed a hand on his forearm giving it a gentle squeeze. “Ed he’s fine, whatever you’re thinking right now is just your fear talking, and besides you kind of do still lie to him.” 

He glared up at her. “I don’t, what do I lie about?”

“Christ Ed, I know about the pills and your hallucinations.”

He looked away from her again feeling rather ashamed and guilty. “Don’t tell him.” He muttered.

“I won’t. He’s your husband, but if I think things are getting too out of hand then I have to tell him.”

Ed nodded solemnly, he knew she was right, and he couldn’t blame her. He closed his eyes and retrieved his phone from his pocket again. 

The sound of the front door closing startled him. In no time at all he was shoving his phone back into his pocket, jumping out of his seat, and scrambling out of the room and towards the main hall. His heart hammered in his chest, he felt ridiculous for his anxiety, his irritation, and his paranoid fears of what could have happened. Oswald looked up at him confused, it was obvious he could see how anxious Ed was, that he wanted to know why he looked so worried.

Ed moved closer to him, placed a hand against the back of his head his fingers curling in his hair, he leaned down kissing him deeply. Oswald froze for a moment caught off guard before kissing back, his own hands finding their way to Ed’s hips pulling his body close against his own. 

“Missed you” Ed whispered against his lips.

“I can tell,” Oswald countered, he rubbed his hand up along his side. 

Ed stroked his fingers through his hair, he found he didn’t want to move away from him or even confront him about the fact he hadn’t been at the casino. 

“I told you he’d come back eventually.”

Ed turned to see Lee standing in the doorway, police reports and photographs in her hand. Oswald’s eyes immediately fixed on the papers as he moved past his husband and approached Lee.

“Are those for me?” He asked.

She handed him the reports, “They are, though not really good news for you.” 

Both of them watched Oswald as he went through the file, panic then anger taking over his features. 

“Wh-when did this happen?” 

“The cops think it happened around 2 PM, as it says there one of your waitresses found them like that.” 

Oswald still stared down at the reports, he clutched the papers in his hands, and Ed waited for him to throw them. He knew his husband’s temperament, he knew the likelihood of his obvious anger leading into a tantrum and demands for Hangman’s head on a stake.

Instead he closed his eyes and took deep steadying breaths, he held out the pages for Lee to take as if he was sickened by them.

“Do the cops know you have these?” He finally asked as he opened his eyes.

Lee took the pages from him, she looked the slightest bit annoyed at the question, the accusation that laid in the words. 

“No, they don’t, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be here telling you any of this if the cops knew I took these.”

He nodded his head as if realizing that was a fair point, that he might be over thinking.

“If there’s anymore news on the streets or otherwise be sure to come to me about it.”

“I always do.” 

Lee glanced at Ed one more time before stepping past him and heading towards the front door knowing she was dismissed for the night. Ed felt a bit bad for her, but he knew she didn’t mind leaving and going back to the things she deemed far more important than soothing Oswald’s paranoia about the new boogeyman hiding in the dark.

Ed followed Oswald into the study. Oswald poured a drink for himself then one for Ed handing the glass to him, there was a silence that for the smaller man was companionable and for Ed was tense and full of questions. He nursed his drink, rolled up the right sleeve of the mint green dress shirt he wore. 

“Where were you?” He finally blurted out, the question awkward and his voice a bit too loud considering they were alone.

Oswald didn’t react or look at him, he just simply downed his drink then went on for a second one. 

“I told you”

“You said that you’d been at the Glacier, if you’d been there around the time you told me that then you would have been there when the Hangman killed those men.” 

He sighed as if tired, as if annoyed with Ed for thinking up things that were purely paranoid accusations.

“I made my usual rounds, checked out the development of the places I’ve taken over, and checked in with Mr. Freeze about something. That’s it.”

There was something he was leaving out, Ed stared at him waiting for him to just tell him the truth. There was the ridiculous minute fear that he might be cheating, but Ed knew him far better than that.

‘He could be cheating, maybe with Victor, either Victor come to think of it….He sees them more than he sees you these days.’

Ed downed his drink, he picked up the bottle from the desk and poured a second, Oswald was watching him as if he could also hear the nagging teasing voice that was causing Ed’s cheeks to flush.

“There are things I’ve been doing that I just need to work out on my own, okay?” Oswald finally said, there was a gentleness in his tone, the type of tone he often took with Martin when trying to explain something to him.

‘You’re less of a husband and more of a babysitting job….Come to think of it you also just babysit the kid when you aren’t out playing cops and robbers with the Doc.’

Ed took a steadying breath, he leaned back against the desk and hoped maybe he could just will away the voice in his head as well as the shadow that loomed in the corner of his vision. 

He startled when Oswald placed a hand against his bicep, he was standing too close, but there was a comfort in the solid warmth of his hand and the body heat that expressed he was real and he was home with him. He wasn’t dead and strung up in a casino.

“I was worried about you.” Ed whispered, voice breaking as the words left him.

“I’m sorry, you don’t have to worry though. I’m home now, I’ll try being here more often.”

“Thank you.” He leaned down kissing him gently. Oswald placed a hand against his cheek, his fingers lovingly caressing his skin.

Ed wanted to press further about where he had been, he knew there was something going on that he either didn’t feel was any of Ed’s business or knew he’d react badly too. In that case a part of him feared knowing, he was okay with currently not knowing about whatever it was that his spouse was hiding from him.


End file.
